Danie van der Merwe

Paperless-ngx is an open-source document management system that transforms your physical documents into a searchable online archive

You can either scan or upload various document formats into Paperless-ngx.

It will organise and index your scanned documents with tags, correspondents, types, and more. Your data is stored locally on your server and is never transmitted or shared in any way. It performs OCR on your documents, adding searchable and selectable text, even to documents scanned with only images.

Documents are saved as PDF/A format which is designed for long term storage, alongside the unaltered originals. It uses machine-learning (see no AI) to automatically add tags, correspondents, and document types to your documents. Supports PDF documents, images, plain text files, Office documents (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and LibreOffice equivalents) and more.

I installed this using the Docker Compose script file. I did notice though for support of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and LibreOffice equivalents I needed to also install Tika and Gotenberg (added them to the Docker Compose file).

It is not just limited to documents, though, as it will also connect via IMAP to an e-mail server and organise and archive your e-mails.

I'm testing it out a bit now and finding it useful for scanning in my numerous receipts, as the OCR will help find what I'm looking for later. I'm thinking of doing a video about it in a few weeks to show what it does, and does not, do.

See Paperless-ngx

Paperless-ngx is a community-supported open-source document management system that transforms your physical documents into a searchable online archive so you can keep, well, less paper. Paperless-ngx is the official successor to the original Paperless & Paperless-ng projects and is designed to distribute the responsibility of advancing and...

#technology #opensource #archiving #documents

On an iPhone or iPad, open the Files or Notes app and use "Scan a Document" to scan a document with your device's camera. On Android, use the Google Drive app to scan a document to your phone or tablet. (The Google Drive app works on iPhone and iPad, too.)

These existing apps actually do a very good job of scanning multiple pages, straightening pages, recognising the text, using existing storage, etc. There is no reason really today to go buy scanners or even 3rd party apps.

See The Best Ways to Scan a Document Using Your Phone or Tablet

#technology #scanning #documents

Scanners had their moment, but nowadays it’s not as necessary to own one. However, that doesn’t mean you never need to scan a document or photo. Thankfully, you probably have some tools to do it without a scanner.

Using pixelation to redact images? Those pixels may not actually be hiding anything.

This week, Dan Petro, Lead Researcher at offensive security firm Bishop Fox has demonstrated how he was able to completely recover text from an image redacted via the pixelation method. Further, the researcher has released a GitHub tool that can be used by anyone to reconstruct text from obscure, pixelated images.

But Petro shows why it might be safer to just stick good old opaque bars over the text you want to hide, rather than chancing it with alternate techniques — especially with pixelation. "The bottom line is that when you need to redact text, use black bars covering the whole text. Never use anything else. No pixelization, no blurring, no fuzzing, no swirling," warns Petro.

See Researcher 'reverses' redaction, extracts words from pixelated image

#technology #privacy #redaction #documents

A researcher has demonstrated how he was able to successfully recover text that had been redacted using the pixelation technique. Further, the researcher has released a GitHub tool that can be used by anyone to reconstruct text from obscure, pixelated images.